


Wilted Wildberry

by Mezzieeeee



Category: Touhou Project
Genre: Angst, Drama, Necromancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-20 04:03:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19369420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mezzieeeee/pseuds/Mezzieeeee
Summary: Curiosity leads to obssession. Ambition leads to jealousy. Confidence leads to hubris.Cracks propogate, and Yumemi and Chiyuri's friendship shows signs of wear. It won't take long before someone will wedge them apart.





	Wilted Wildberry

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to YaGirlJuniper for proof reading my work.

Dreary and dull, the evening sun sunk lower down to the horizon, covered by gloomy clouds that overcast the dimming light, sending long shadows into the bar that the pair had occupied. The Mirror’s Flower seemed shadier than expected, but there was no fuss for either of them as they often came down to this izakaya after a long week.   
The silence between them was tense. Yumemi sipped her drink, staring out of the window next to her, fiddling with the straw whilst passers-by reflected in the puddles of the street. Chiyuri flicked through the menus, her hand hovering over each item, before discarding one for the next menu and repeating.  A waiter approached from the kitchen, offering to take their orders.

 

“One beer.”  
“Two.”

 

He thanked them, and came back to bring them their drinks, carefully placing them between the pair.  Yumemi looked up, and spat out a half chewed nail she’d been working on.  “I don’t understand,” she muttered.  
Chiyuri’s head unhurriedly followed the nail as it careened through the air. Regarding it with apathy, she turned back to see her friend chewing on the other hand, her left fingers raw by now.  “I am hardly surprised at this point.”

 

Yumemi’s fist crashed onto the table, and a few of the patrons turned to see before returning back to their own conversations. “You saw with your own eyes, Chiyuri. It was wonderful, I had all the data!”  
“And then.”  
“And then they still didn’t believe me.” Yumemi let out a frustrated sigh and sank down in her chair. “I can’t believe this happened again. They told me never to come back, that the university was done with my nonsense. And look where we are now. I haven’t seen them look at anyone with that sheer look of  _pity._ How dare they all look down at me!”

 

Chiyuri stared down at the platter between them, and reached out to gingerly remove a green bean from the plate. She inspected it, deemed it worthy, and bit off one end of it before responding.  “What do you mean ‘we’?”  
“We went on the expedition together, we did all the data together, we-“  
“Yumemi, I’m not part of the university. I still have 2 terms to go before my final exams. I can’t even legally drink yet.” She pointed at her with her half eaten green bean. “I’m your friend, not your business partner. Don’t take it out on me.”

 

Yumemi held her head in her hands, frustrated tears welling in the corner of her eyes. “I can’t believe everything I built up is gone just like that. I can never set foot there for as long as I live.”  Again, Chiyuri serenely lifted a green bean from the plate, and savoured the taste, keeping her eyes affixed on her friend as she moaned.   
Eyebrows raised, she continued. “Yumemi, you’re 18. You’ve never even been outside of Japan and you’re considering that this is the end of everything, ever?” She ignored the snap of another broken fingernail and went on. “Everyone makes mistakes, you know? It doesn’t matter.”

“Is this what this was to you? A mistake?” Yumemi thumped her hand on the table. “Please, point out where the methodological mistakes where, please point out what the mistakes in the testing and error analysis were, how was any of this MY fault.” She noticed she was standing up, and crumpled into her seat, blushing angrily.

 

“You’re making a scene.”

“I am most certainly not.”

“You absolutely are. You’re also blowing this way out of proportion.”

 

The redhead jabbed a finger, almost into Chiyuri’s eye. “You don’t understand! You never do…”

Chiyuri huffed, “What the fuck does that MEAN!” She grabbed another green bean, her eye twitching in anger, before chomping the end off and forcing herself to speak quietly.

 

“You explained everything. You love explaining shit to me, it’s how you probably get off, lauding your intellect over your dumb idiot best friend.” Yumemi tried to stammer a response, but she couldn’t interrupt. “I wasted nearly my entire holiday going on this stupid adventure with you, and enduring your stupid remarks and comments about me the entire time because I thought you would be happy that we were doing stuff together again!”

“We come back from another land, having seen true supernatural activity first hand, with evidence! And here you are, drinking away what little money you have left, because you don’t think for a second that maybe it wasn’t all that bad.”  Chiyuri propped her head in her hand again.  “You’re not even an adult, but you have a degree. A masters. Of physics. Have you ever once considered pulling your head out of your arse and maybe getting a real job?”

 

Yumemi blinked, and started talking through gritted teeth. “And how is being a researcher not a real job?”

“I don’t know, maybe coz of the fact you’re surrounded by assholes and pompous brats who do nothing but encourage your shittiness to me and everyone around you, whilst spending their days arguing over semantics!”

“I’m not being shi-, rude to you or to anyone else!”

Chiyuri scoffed. “I am in such disbelief at your unwillingness to see yourself right now.” She reached for another green bean, and frowned when she found the bowl empty. “You know what? Fuck you.” 

 

Chiyuri stood up, and left.

The world continued to move around her as Yumemi lowered herself, deeper into her chair. She signalled the waiter over, and asked for another beer.

 

* * *

 

The sound returns to the self first, she recalled from a dim psychology book years ago. When one wakes up, the sense of sound comes first, as the lush sounds of light drizzle gently stirred her.

With suddenness, Yumemi awoke. The pain of a blistering hangover pierced her forehead and almost forced her to slump back down, as she sat herself upright and looked around the room.

The memories of last night were foggy, but not so much that she couldn’t remember arguing with Chiyuri. Getting drunk, loudly proclaiming to a group of young ladies to go karaoking with her late into the night, followed by bizarre, pulsating images of light shows and music she couldn’t quite recall.  There wasn’t much to the room. Beige, plain walls. Rice panel doors. A weird lamp that belonged in a museum.

 

She stood up from the bed that she just noticed she was sitting on, and walked to the window. Before her lay an expanse of forest she had rarely seen from her time spent in the city, and she felt a pit in her stomach fall as she struggled to recall exactly how she had ended up in the middle of nowhere.  ‘Wherever this place is, it’s well kept’ she thought. Nothing was dusty, and everything seemed immaculate about the place. She wondered if she could spare the money for a ticket home as her mind careened around.

 

Hands on pockets. No purse.

 

The colours of the room shifted to look calculating, as if it were painted to seem boring. “Someone’s trying too hard,” she whispered to herself. 

And so she left. Her stance was programmed, as she meticulously tried each door inside the house. None so much as budged, and she was beginning to grow suspicious when she heard the first sounds of sentience.  A song in a tongue she couldn’t identify.

 

Whatever it was the lady was singing, it was well rehearsed. Beautiful, too, but melancholic. It took a few seconds for Yumemi to realise she’d stopped moving, and she crept through the hallways.

 

Her foot squelched onto  _ something _ .

The dark of the halls prevented her from seeing exactly what it was, but it was  _ wet.  _ And it was leaking through the door she was leaning on, precisely where the singing seemed to have been coming from.

 

With steeled resolve, she opened the door.

 

Amidst the sawing and the hacking of the blade, a porcelain-faced 20 year old lady was merrily singing a tune as blood occasionally splattered on her face and garbs. She would have been right at home on the shelf of a toy makers shop had she not been crudely disassembling her patient.

She turned her head Yumemi’s way and paused. Long moments passed between them, before she greeted her with her one clean arm. “Terribly sorry about the mess dear, I had hoped you wouldn’t wake up in the middle of this.”

 

“Now, we’ll talk about what happened last night soon, but as you can see,” the lady said as she hacked out a bloated organ, “I am in the middle of something right now.”

 

Yumemi almost fainted. “What do you mean, last night?!”

 

Another pause from the lady. “You mean you can’t remember anything?”

 

She returned to her work, forcefully thrusting, hand slurping between the slimy, croaking gaps of tainted flesh. The stench whooshed out and punched Yumemi in the gut, and she clapped her hand over her mouth as she felt a wet burn bubble up from the back of her throat, her vomit outrunning the sensation of nausea itself. She turned away and looked at the floor, taking deep breaths, forcing back every combining instinct pushing up against her stomach.

She pulled in a breath and paused at the top, staring at the floor but not noticing a thing about it. She let out her breath and shook her head, closing her heavy eyes in iron-faced acceptance of her circumstances. She pulled the collar of her shirt above her mouth and nose and she turned around again. "I don't even know where I am, or who you are." She shrugged weakly. "Terribly sorry."

  
  


The lady wiped her brow with her clean arm and looked back. “I can see this is making you uncomfortable. Please, just leave and get a cup of tea. Kitchen is 3 doors down, on the left.”

“Thank you, miss..?”

Before resuming her work, the lady smiled. “Just call me Seiga.”

Yumemi hurried to close the door by this point. As it slammed shut, she choked down her tears and was even grateful for the dusty hallway that had watered her eyes before.

A fresh cup of tea later, and Seiga walked into the kitchen mopping her brow with an old towel that was on the side of the counter.  Yumemi looked up from dozing off, and immediately started bombarding her with questions.  “What happened last night, why am I here, what are you doing in this place, is this even legal? And where IS my purse?!”

Seiga simply raised an eyebrow before grabbing her own cup – a traditional chinese one, Yumemi noticed – and poured herself some tea from the brewing kettle.

 

“My, my. It seems you truly can’t recall anything”

Yumemi wasn’t having any of it however. She firmly placed her cup to the side and strode underneath her nose. “I am an esteemed professor at the university of Kyoto, if you will hamper me any more than you already have, then it will end up poorly for you!”

Seiga simply sipped her tea. “That would be true if you were still a professor.” Although her face remained static, there was a hint of smugness in her voice as she talked to Yumemi. “You told me all about your troubles yesterday, and how you truly despised them all.”

 

“And what about it.”   
  
Seiga sat up straighter. “I’m an academic myself. This house is our research quarters, and what I’m working on at the moment may pique your interest.” She eagerly leaned in closer. “And I have a proposition for you.”

 

Yumemi cautiously waited. When no answer was given to her silent question, she started again. “I’m not entirely sure how I can help your research if you don’t explain to me what it is you’re doing.”

Seiga simply smiled. “The power of resurrection.”

 

* * *

 

Tea at Yumemi and Chiyuri’s apartment was tense. Each day after school, Chiyuri would brew a cup, and sit at the dining room table, idly stirring whilst Yumemi sat across from her, and nibbled on a sandwich, or biscuit, whatever struck her fancy.   
They made a very hard attempt not to look at each other.

  
  
A week rolled around, where the exchange played the same, until Chiyuri leaned across and sheepishly pointed at a letter. “Did you pay the rent?”   
  
Yumemi chewed on her pen, before looking up from her sudoku. “I’m busy,” she said, and returned to pretending to ignore her friend.   
  
“Ok, but maybe the rent is a little bit more imp-”   
  
Yumemi slammed her pen down on the table. “I have it sorted. Don’t bother me.”

 

The terse conversation dried up and Chiyuri returned to sipping on her tea, staring out the apartment window. She rested her head in her hands and furrowed her brow, letting Yumemi’s words replay in her head. A few minutes elapsed before the source of her confusion burrowed to the surface, and she asked Yumemi, “Where did the money come from? I thought you were out of a job.”

 

“What do you mean, out of a job?”   
“I mean, weren’t you fired from the uni?”

Yumemi smirked. “Someone of my caliber and talent never spends long without a job.” She brought down her pen onto the sudoku grid and jotted down twelve numbers without missing a beat. “Though I could hardly call it an enjoyable one, it boasts a more than acceptable pay.”

 

Chiyuri made a noise of assent, and leaned in. “So, what do you do?”  
“I can’t tell you that. That would be  _ leaking information _ .”   
“Right, you think I’m too dumb to understand. That’s fine.” Chiyuri leaned back with a sigh and a frown.  
“Heavens no, it’s not that you’re too dumb, it’s that-”  
“Oh my god, always with this shit. You can’t trust me with a secret anymore? Your best friend?”

 

Yumemi pursed her lips. Then tutted. “It’s complicated.”  
Chiyuri wordlessly left the table and retreated to her room.

 

With school resuming, Chiyuri couldn’t afford to spend much time pondering. Her teachers had already started piling schoolwork onto her, and she found it difficult prying herself away from assignments in her room. Hours slowly melted together as she futilely penned down her thoughts on her literary work, before she gave up and rummaged through her bag.  She had managed to salvage one thing before all of her findings were confiscated by Yumemi. A small scrap of parchment that unfurled and seemed to pulse with exotic  _ something. _ Kanji were written onto it, inscribed almost into the thin paper, but she knew that they were different from her schoolwork somehow.

 

For the 5th evening in a row, she studied the words once more.


End file.
